


Family Responsibility

by ryfkah



Category: Ouran High School Host Club
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/pseuds/ryfkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's another holiday at Ouran, but Tamaki seems strangely subdued</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Responsibility

“Where’s Tamaki-senpai?” Haruhi asks, and then checks behind herself, quickly, in case he’s lurking in the corner with a bunny rabbit outfit at the ready.

(It’s a holiday, and Tamaki always has special outfits for the Host Club on holidays – and though Haruhi’s at something of a loss to figure out how today’s theme could be made appealing. Still, it’s always a mistake to underestimate Tamaki’s capacity for enthusiasm and ability to make them all look ridiculous.)

Kyouya looks up from the omnipresent clipboard. “He isn’t in today,” he says. The light glints off his glasses in a particularly unapproachable fashion. Haruhi wonders if it’s worthwhile to try to get him to volunteer more information, and decides that it probably isn’t. Besides, it’s something of a relief, to be honest. She has a visit to pay after school and she doesn’t trust Tamaki not to try and tag along. Even though she’s expressly told him not to. _Especially_ though she’s expressly told him not to.

“I hope Keiko-chan isn’t too disappointed,” she says, instead.

“She isn’t here today either,” says Kyouya, not bothering to check his list. “A significant proportion of the class is absent for Respect for the Aged Day. I’m surprised you didn’t notice already.”

Of course, thinks Haruhi, rich students like these don’t need to worry about missing a little homework. All the same, it seems strange to her that so many would have chosen to make this a student skip day. “Why?”

If you know Kyouya well, it’s not hard to pick up on the slight shift in expression that implies that you’re being particularly stupid, or willfully innocent. His tone, of course, remains perfectly bland. “Considering their elite backgrounds, it’s not surprising that students here feel that on a day like today responsibility to their families is more important than their studies.”

“Oh,” says Haruhi, and a slight frown crosses her face as she starts putting things together. But then it’s time to go out and start serving the tea, so she sets it all aside for the moment to concentrate on the daily difficulty of reaching the table before Honey pounces and causes her to spill hot liquid all over her uniform.

They’re halfway through the Host Club activities period when Tamaki sweeps in through the door, sparkling with a brightness that seems to Haruhi above and beyond the call of duty. “Hello, my adored subjects!” he cries, roses twirling in the background behind him, and then lowers his voice to say seductively, “Did you miss me?”

The two closest girls faint into his arms, Hikaru and Kaoru straighten from their tenderly entwined posture and salute, Honey cries “Tama-chan!” and dives for his legs, and Mori gives a solemn nod. Haruhi is about to roll her eyes when Kyouya says, watching Tamaki with his unreadable eyes, “Back so soon?”

Tamaki meets Kyouya’s gaze for a very brief moment, and then tilts his head back, somehow managing to strike a noble pose while still supporting a girl with each arm. “I couldn’t be so selfish as to deprive you all of my company for too long,” he declaims, with the unbelievable and unfakeable sincerity with which Tamaki always declaims this sort of thing. “How could I allow my beloved princesses to suffer such a cruel fate?”

“Of course,” Kyouya says, and then he looks at Haruhi. “You have a lot of clients today, Haruhi, and some of them are Tamaki’s regulars.”

“Oh - yes,” Haruhi says, and turns to give her customers her best Natural Rookie smile. (It’s not patented yet, but Kyouya is working on this.) “Of course I don’t mind if you want to go spend time with Tamaki before the period is over! I know you would have usually designated him.”

“It’s all right,” says the first girl shyly, but the second, quicker on the uptake, glances between Kyouya and Haruhi and says “It’s unfair to make you entertain all of us when there’s a host free, isn’t it? Come on, Akane.”

Soon Tamaki is surrounded, as usual, by a circle of adoring girls. It all looks just as it always does – if anything, Tamaki seems to have managed to turn the charm up an extra few watts – but Haruhi still finds herself glancing over every few minutes. Just to see.

Time runs out. The girls leave.

“Byyyyyyyye!” say the twins, arms around each other’s shoulders. “We’re leaving early,” says Hikaru, “because our father’s got a big party planned for our grandfather,” says Kaoru, “and our mother wants to pick out our outfits beforehand,” says Hikaru, “to make sure he can tell us apart and won’t get embarrassed. You guys won’t mind cleaning up without us, right?” And the two of them disappear.

Mori and Honey stay a little longer, though Honey spends most of the time prattling about the cake he’s going to make for his grandmother. “And it’s going to have chocolate, and strawberries, Haru-chan,” he tells her earnestly, “and cream and – and actually I think I’ll make three so there can be one for Grandmother and one for me and one for Bun-bun! Oh, but then there won’t be any for Takashi,” and he looks over at Mori with wobbling sad eyes.

Mori picks him up and leaves.

Which leaves three of them. And Kyouya, they all know, is going home very shortly to his own family celebration for his grandparents, though he is not going to discuss it with any of them.

“Haruhi,” says Tamaki, frowning, as Kyouya enters the last of the statistics for the day onto his computer, “don’t you have to go too?” Now that he’s no longer surrounded by people, he looks almost, just ever so slightly, tired. It’s an unusual appearance for him. Tamaki is that kind of person who never seems to run out of energy. Even growing mushrooms in a corner takes a kind of energy, and he doesn’t have that kind right now, either.

Haruhi looks at Tamaki, and for a brief wistful moment, images of a pleasant evening with her grandmother, cooking dinner together in peace and calm and quiet, flit through her mind. They are then replaced by images of what Tamaki exclaiming over how clean and practical and cute everything looks, and complimenting the senior Fujioka on how amazing it is that she, a commoner, has managed to live to such an exemplary age even without the benefits of a private family doctor and a day at the spa every weekend.

But balanced against all that are the things that Kaoru mutters every so often about _pumpkin_ and _magic spell_ and _family_ , and while no one really listens to him it doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

“Senpai,” she says, “weren’t you saying that you wanted to meet my grandmother?”

Almost immediately, Tamaki’s face undergoes a complete transformation. “Of course!” he cries, jumping up from his seat. “Daddy has to meet everyone who's important in Haruhi's life!” He reaches out and wraps one arm around Haruhi and starts a dedicated hair-mussing operation with the other. “Kyouya, Haruhi is such a good daughter,” he proclaims, as she attempts to squirm free. “She wants to spend Respect for the Aged day with her father, isn’t she a good daughter?”

“I’m not taking you if you don’t let me go,” Haruhi mutters, and scrambles hastily out of his grasp.

This is probably not going to be Haruhi’s most pleasant holiday ever.

But Kyouya, as usual, is right (and he knows it too, the bastard - she can see the light glinting on his eyeglasses.) On a day like today, responsibility to your family comes first.


End file.
